1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a heat transfer image-receiving sheet, and more particularly to a heat transfer image-receiving sheet which can remarkably reduce troubles during conveyance thereof in a printer.
2. Background Art
Heretofore, a heat transfer sheet comprising a substrate sheet and a dye layer has been used when the output printing of a computer or a word processor is conducted by a sublimation-type heat transfer printing method. This heat transfer sheet has a substrate sheet which is heat resistant, and a dye layer which is formed on the substrate sheet in such a manner that an ink prepared by mixing a sublimable dye and a binder is coated onto the substrate sheet and then dried. When heat is applied to the back surface of the heat transfer sheet by a thermal head, a large number of color dots of three or four colors are transferred to an image-receiving sheet. A multicolored image is thus produced on the image-receiving sheet. Since a dye is used in the heat transfer sheet as a coloring agent, the image produced is very sharp and clear. In addition, a half-tone image with good gradation can be obtained with high reproducibility. Thus, a high quality image comparable to a multicolored photographic image can be obtained.
The above mentioned image-receiving sheet generally comprises a substrate sheet and a dye-receptive layer. An image-receiving sheet has recently been employed which has a substrate sheet composed of an ordinary paper and a resin film laminated on the paper. Such an image-receiving sheet, whose substrate sheet is composed of paper and a resin which are completely different in the degree of heat shrinkage from each other, is very likely to curl. There is often a case where an image-receiving sheet is already curled to a considerable degree when it is placed in the sheet-feed section of a printer. In this case, the image-receiving sheet is likely to cause troubles while it is conveyed in a printer, which makes it difficult to stably receive an image on the sheet.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a heat transfer image-receiving sheet which scarcely causes troubles due to curling while it is conveyed in a printer, and on which a high quality image can be stably produced.